"Recipe for Love"
“That’s not how Mommy does it.”
His pint-sized assistant chef watched every move with her eagle eye and had done nothing but complain from the moment he’d tied her little red apron around her waist.
“Okay – what does Mommy do differently?” He wasn’t a fool, if he wanted to get out of this kitchen any time soon he’d have to fold. A strong man always knew when he was bested.
“She shifts it first.”
“Shifts it?” Baffled, he looked at his daughter quizzically.
She giggled. “Silly Daddy. Everybody knows you gotta shift the flour into another bowl before you put it in the cake batter.”
Making a comical face that left her rolling on the floor, he stepped over her writhing form and fetched another bowl. “Shift it, huh?” It made no sense, but then the kitchen wasn’t usually his domain. He dumped the mixture from the earthenware bowl into the big red plastic bowl. “There, happy now?” he asked, whereupon the pint-sized version of his wife climbed back onto her stool, dropping her head into her hands she shook it woefully and asked in a tone perilously close to a whine, “Is Mommy ever going to come back home?”
Holding the picture frame of his family, D winced at the memory of that day, ten years ago. Little Tanya had had no idea then that his world was crumbling around him, just as she had no idea how hard things were right now. That time, Donna did come back home. This time, he wasn’t so sure she would.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.” ~Japanese proverb
Yesterday
“I’m sorry. I just can’t do it any more,” Donna suddenly announced after she’d helped him to bed.
D pressed his hand to his head. He’d only been released from the hospital an hour ago and everything still seemed fuzzy. “What do you mean?”
Donna fingered the crushed velvet curtains in their bedroom. “I can’t jump every time the phone rings because I’m afraid your luck has run out. I thought I could do it. I thought I’d come to terms with it all, but I can’t.”
“Donna, it’s just a bump on the head,” he said, trying to soothe. “Come here.” He patted the empty pillow beside him. “Let’s talk.”
She swiped the tears from her cheeks and went to the closet. She tossed a suitcase on the bed, sending jolts of pain simultaneously through D’s head and his heart. He wasn’t sure which hurt more. “What are you doing?” he breathed.
“I mean it, D. I can’t do this any more. You have a concussion, D! That’s not a bump on the head. Don’t tell me that you couldn’t have been killed. I know better. What about next time? When some idiot decides to take you out or you open a door that’s been rigged with explosives. What about then?”
“Donna, you know my job is dangerous, but I’m as careful as I can possibly be, and I’m not in the field much anymore.”
“But you were today.” Her voice was dry and sad. “I’m going to take the kids and go to my mother’s so you can decide.” With jerky movements, she layered clothes in the suitcase, not trusting herself to look at him.
D got out of bed, swayed a bit, and walked over to her. “Decide what, Donna?”
When she didn’t answer, he took hold of her arms and turned her toward him. “Donna, what do you want me to do? Is this about my job? Do you want me to quit? Are you asking me to choose between you and the Bureau?”
Fresh tears filled her eyes. “I don’t want to make you choose.”
His hands slid down the length of her arms and fell limp at his side. “But you are.” He swallowed hard. He knew Donna’s every mood. He’d seen her elated, depressed, furious, and frustrated. When, she’d made up her mind, he knew nothing he could say would change it.
She closed the suitcase and zipped it shut. He watched her drag it to the door. His own voice seemed far away when he spoke. “Are you coming back?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Today
Wrapping up the paperwork on the Morris case seemed nearly impossible with her picture staring at him. At first, he’d been angry with her. After all, his career choice had been no secret when they married. Donna came into it with her eyes open.
But could she really have known what it would be like? Night after night of tucking the kids in alone, dealing with his emotional burn out because he’d given his all to the Bureau during the day, and holding her breath every time the phone rang like she said “in case his luck had run out.” Could he really blame her? He put “them” in jeopardy every day.
Then, his anger turned to what had happened yesterday. It had been such a simple open and shut case. They should have been able to pull it off without so much as a scratch, but then a rookie, Agent Trevor Struyk, made a critical mistake and D had pushed him to the ground and gained a slight concussion in the process. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
He broke the pencil in his hand.
“I’m going for a walk,” he announced to no one in particular. Jack and Sue’s eyes met. They’d all sensed the tension in the bullpen throughout the morning and Dimitrius Gans was the epicenter. Sue tilted her head in the direction of the door.
Jack picked up on her suggestion. “You feeling okay? Want some company?”
“No.”
Bobby cocked his head at the strange tone in his supervisor’s voice. “Are you sure, mate?”
“I said no.”
“Right-o. If you change your mind, . . .”
D wouldn’t have heard anything else since he was already out the door and headed down the hall. Jabbing the buttons on the elevator, he shifted impatiently. He watched the lights blink . . .2, 3, 4, 5, and then stop. Someone was holding the elevator. He couldn’t bear to wait another minute, so he hurried to the staircase. Anywhere had to better than here.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Half an hour later, he didn’t know how he’d ended up there, but the Hall of Heroes seemed an appropriate place to contemplate ones career. Sitting on the stone bench, he read the names in front of him. Some, he recognized because he’d heard their story; others he knew personally. He rose and traced his finger over the name he knew the best – Special Agent Andrew Dollen. Andy and D had partnered when he first began. Andy, slightly older than D, had been married for five years. Then, when the young blonde agent had been killed in a take down, D had told Andy’s wife Melissa what had happened. He’d watched her world come to a screeching halt and vowed that he’d never put his new wife Donna through that kind of pain.
For a long while, D would stop by Melissa’s and do an odd job or two or, he and Donna would show up and take their two year old Liz for the evening. Donna was so good with the little girl that is made it easy for D to picture her as the mother of his children.
He mentally calculated Melissa’s age. She’d be graduating from high school this year, but her father wouldn’t be there to see it. He shuddered. What if he didn’t live to see Tanya or Davey graduate? Get married? What if he never held his own grandchildren?
“Hi.”
He spun when he heard her voice. “Donna.”
“I knew you’d be here. Honey, we need to talk.”
Her velvety voice beckoned him as it always did. He crossed the stone floor and took her hands in his own. “Do you want to go get something to eat?
“Cake?” she said with a knowing smile.
He smiled back. She, too, remembered the lopsided cake little Tanya had produced that day. “Sorry, I didn’t make you one this time.”
“Good. You can only eat a cake like that once in a lifetime.”
“It wasn’t bad.”
“Oh yes, it was.”
“Donna . . .”
“No, please, let me say what’s on my mind.” She watched him cringe. “D, I’m sorry. You’ll never have to worry about making me a cake again.”
“What?”
“I won’t leave you again – ever. Til death do us part, remember?”
“I didn’t tell you what I decided.”
She traced the bandage on his head with her hand. “I don’t want to see your name on this wall, but that’s the selfish part of me. You know how Tanya explains it. She said that you’re one of the good guys, and if all the good guys quit trying to change the world, the bad guys will win. She’s a smart girl.”
D lifted her hand to his lips and placed it over his heart. “Just like her mother. Donna, you made a good point. Something could happen to me. I don’t think about it because I can’t do my job and live in fear, but look around you. All these people thought they’d come home at night and they didn’t.”
“I know.” Tears glistened in Donna’s eyes. “But I can’t be happy knowing I put my desires above what you needed. D, you need this job. You need to be able to make a difference in the world. I can’t take that from you even if I want to.”
“And if I want to give it up?”
“Then, I couldn’t let you do it.” She laid her head against his chest. “If you were a great pianist, I would tell you that you had to play. If you were as talented as Michaelangelo, I would tell that not to paint was a crime. If you sang like Josh Groban, then I’d insist you sing to me every day.” They both chuckled since he was her favorite artist and D’s musical talent left much to be desired. She looked into his dark eyes and continued, “But your canvas is an ugly world. Your music is the noise of the streets. D, you have to make your mark on the world in the way God has planted in your heart. It’s who you are. It’s who He wants you to be.”
“But yesterday, what happened scared you.”
“I just forgot who was in charge of the Big Picture.”
He kissed the top of her head. “I love you, and I want you to know I’d do anything for you.”
“I know.”
“I’d even take you to that little place around the corner . . .”
“. . . with the Better-than-Sex cake?”
“Yep.” He took her hand and started to walk from the room. “But you know, that’s really not true.”
“What’s that?”
“No cake can be better than . . .”
She clamped her hand over his mouth. “D! We’re in the Hoover Building! Who knows how many bugs there are in here.”
He chuckled. “You’ve been married to an agent too long, dear.”
“No, no matter how long God gives us, it will never be enough.”
I guess we forget how hard it must be for the families of people who do such potentially risky jobs, and I felt so bad for both of them...
What a wonderful marriage they obviously have. 
That's love!
I am gobsmacked! What an amazing story. Sow well-written, tight, exploding with emotion! Love this description of D
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That was amazing.